Simon Lindgren

Pirate culture and hacktivist mobilization: The cultural and social protocols of #WikiLeaks on Twitter:

This article uses the case of Twitter activity under the #WikiLeaks hashtag to address issues of social movements online. The aim is to analyze the potential of elusive web spaces as sites of mobilization. Looking at linguistic and social aspects, our main questions were: What are the characteristics of the communication in terms of common discursive codes versus fragmentation? In what respects can social order be distinguished, and to what extent are connections between users simply random? Are there any prominent patterns as regards the commitment of participators over time? With the help of tools from semantic, social network and discourse analysis, we were able to show that common codes, networks of connections and mobilization do exist in this context. These patterns can be seen as part of the elaboration of a ‘cognitive praxis’. In order to organize and mobilize, any movement needs to speak a common language, agree on the definition of the situation and formulate a shared vision. Even though it is global and loosely-knit, Twitter discourse is a space where such processes of meaning-production take place.

YouTube gunmen? Mapping participatory media discourse on school shooting videos

Before the school shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, as well as before the similar tragedies in Finnish Jokela 2007 and Kauhajoki 2009, the gunmen gave warnings by posting clips on the online video-sharing site YouTube. This fact was strongly emphasized in the news media coverage of these events. Swedish newspaper Östersunds Posten wrote on the Kauhajoki shooting that ‘the acceleration of violence on YouTube and in the world of video games can ... lead to young people not being able to tell right from wrong, or fiction from reality’. Symptomatically, Expressen − another Swedish newspaper − emphasized that: ‘After having posted the clip online Matti Juhani Saari is believed to have shot ten people.’ TimesOnline wrote of ‘the YouTube Gunman’. In spite of the deep tragedy of these events, a dangerous assumption of causality (YouTube equals massacre) is inherent in such discourse. At every point in time when a new medium enters the stage, this tends to lead to strikingly similar debates on basic social and cultural norms. The new medium under discussion becomes a rhetorical device in discussions that are, in fact, about something completely different. These ‘media panics’ (Drotner, 1999) tell us very little about the mediums discussed as such, but more about social and cultural dilemmas that are of a much wider character. The moralizing discourse on YouTube, for example, directs attention away from much of what is actually happening. Such as – to name just one example − the fact that the US (where, of course, Virginia Tech is located) has the highest level of gun ownership in the world, or that Finland (where, of course, Jokela and Kauhajoki are located) comes in third on the same list. Gun statistics are only part of the equation, but all in all the media panic mode of representation obscures the multitude of social and cultural factors that clearly contribute to the events taking place (bullying, masculinity ideals, class differences, etc.).

Inside victims and outside offenders : dislocations and interventions in the discourse of rape

This article is based on case studies of the reporting of four widely-publicized incidents of rape and/or sexual assault (in one case combined with murder) in the Swedish press. The analysis uses Thompsons theory of ideology, and Laclaus concepts of “dislocation” and “hegemonic intervention”. The main argument is that variations in representational strategies cannot be understood exclusively in terms of actual variations as regards the contexts of these crimes. Rather, stories tend to take on their particular forms as a response to certain discursive “needs”. We want to emphasize that the specific ways in which social problems – such as crimes – are symbolically constructed can be seen as products of which types of victims and offenders are needed by hegemonic discourse for it to be able to sustain itself. The news stories tend to employ a strategy according to which offender images are typically externalized and pushed towards the “outside” while victim images are constructed in terms of inclusion.

It took me about half an hour, but I did it! : Media circuits and affinity spaces around how-to videos on YouTube

Combining sentiment analysis and discursive network analysis, this article looks to answer which sentiments characterize YouTube comments discourse, with a specific focus on how-to videos. What are the differences between comments to various types of videos, and which discursive contexts seem to promote positive sentiment and a participatory climate? Furthermore, the aim is to map out a variety of existing user strategies in terms of their degree of participation. What various modes of taking part and/or giving support are made discursively possible, and what degrees of detachment or engagement are expressed through these identified strategies?

The subpolitics of online piracy: A Swedish case study

‘Pirates’ and ‘anti-pirates’ have become common concepts in the cultural political debate, as the file-sharing phenomenon is a delicate and disputed subject. The fact that people organize in networks to share data with each other has led film and music companies from all over the world to initiate a number of anti-piracy organizations, assigned to protect the property rights to culture and information. In Sweden, the industrial organization The Swedish Bureau of Anti-Piracy on the one side, and the network The Bureau of Piracy together with The Pirate Party, on the other, play important parts in the prevailing conflict. The purpose of this article is to apply a sociological perspective on the collective act of file sharing. By focusing on the distinctly organized part of file sharing activities as well as on the everyday practices of users, the goal is to describe how the collective action and the production of knowledge, taking place in relation to online piracy, can be understood.

Pirate panics : comparing news and blog discourse on illegal file sharing in Sweden

This article aims to map discourses and counter-discourses through which online piracy has been framed and constructed in Swedish blogs and online news. It has been common in previous analyses of moral public debates about new forms of media consumption to focus on conservative top-down hegemonic processes of reinstating order. The classic moral panic literature overemphasizes control, power and hegemony while overlooking counter-discourses. This study, on the other hand, takes such forms of symbolic resistance into account. It relies on a comparative discursive network analysis of texts produced by corporate news organizations and of blogs representing pro-piracy perspectives. It is concluded that with the blurring of the boundaries between producers and consumers of content, more and more localized moral panics that are not necessarily hegemonic are likely to be seen. Panic reactions can run not only from the top down but also from the bottom up as niche and micro media instigate their own moral panics.

COLLECTIVE COPING THROUGH NETWORKED NARRATIVES: YOUTUBE RESPONSES TO THE VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING

Collective coping through networked narratives : YouTube responses to the Virginia Tech shooting

Representing otherness in youth crime discourse : youth robberies and racism in the Swedish Press 1998-2002

The aim of this article is to analyze racist news discourse by applying some notions from Norman Faircloughs and Teun van Dijks work. We know that racism is shaped and defined in relation to specific historic and cultural contexts. How, then, should we grasp the many similarities between different case studies? This issue is addressed by relating the results of the case study mentioned above to the ones arrived at by Hall et al. in their classic Policing the crisis (1978). The conclusion is that these similarities have to do with the recurring externalization of internal conflicts in capitalist societies.

From Object to Flow: Network Sensibility, Symbolic Interactionism, and Social Media

This article discusses how certain sensibilities and techniques from a network perspective can facilitate different levels of thinking about symbolic interaction in mediated contexts. The concept of network implies emergent structures that shift along with the people whose connections construct these webs of significance. A network sensibility resonates with contemporary social media contexts in that it focuses less on discrete objects and more on the entanglements among elements that may create meaning. From a methodological stance, this involves greater sensitivity to movement and connection, both in the phenomenon and in the researcher’s relationship to this flow. The goal is to embody the perspective of moving with and through the data, rather than standing outside it as if it can be observed, captured, isolated, and scrutinized outside the flow. Rather than reducing the scope, the practice of moving through and analyzing various elements of networks generates more data, more directions, and more layers of meaning. We describe various ways a network sensibility might engender more creative and ethically grounded approaches to studying contemporary cultures of information flow.

The power of precision air strikes and social media feeds in the 2012 Israel–Hamas conflict: ‘targeting transparency’

This article analyses the evolving uses of social media during wartime through the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Spokesperson Facebook and Twitter accounts. The conflict between Israel and Hamas-affiliated groups in November 2012 has generated interesting data about social media use by a sovereign power in wartime and the resultant networked discourse. Facebook data is examined for effective patterns of dissemination through both content analysis and discourse analysis. Twitter data is explored through connected concept analysis to map the construction of meaning in social media texts shared by the IDF. The systematic examination of this social media data allows the authors’ analysis to comment on the evolving modes, methods and expectations for state public diplomacy, propaganda and transparency during wartime.